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Today we did some heart shaped biscuits. The didn’t turn out exactly how I planned but were really nice and easy to make. I was going to melt some white chocolate and mix in pink food colouring, then dip the biscuits in, but somehow I managed to burn the white chocolate. It went all lumpy so used dark chocolate instead. Maybe didn’t look as pretty but I know I prefer the taste of dark chocolate.

1) Grease two baking sheets with butter to stop the biscuits sticking, and preheat oven to 180°/ gas mark 4

2) Sift the flour into large bowl and add the butter.

3) Rub the butter into the flour with your fingers until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.

4) Stir the sugar into the mixture. Break the egg into a small bowl and beat well. Add to mixture in big bowl and stir until it forms a dou

5) Sprinkle a clean work surface with flour and put dough onto it. Roll the dough out until it it is about a quarter of an inch thick.

6) Use a cutter to cut out the shapes (we obviously used hearts) and carefully place onto the greased baking tray.

7) Bake for 12-15minutes or until golden brown. Leave them to cool completely on a wire rack.

That’s the basic recipe.
Like I said, I intended to melt white cooking chocolate and mix in a drop of food colouring to make it pink, but it went all lumpy. Typically, I had no more white chocolate ! We melted a bar of dark cooking chocolate in the microwave, taking it out and stirring every ten seconds or so to make sure it didn’t burn. We them had loads of fun dipping the biscuits into the chocolate and then sprinkling red sugar on to make them pretty, and left them to cool and set in the fridge.

The gorgeous Rachel at Candy Floss Cloud had a go at these biscuits with her little one, along with some other lovely Valentines activities…check her blog out here

Heat the oven to gas mark five
Cream butter and sugar in a bowl
Beat egg in a separate bowl and mix into butter and sugar
Add the flour, spice, fruit and oats and mix well. (Harrison loved this bit!)
Roll into balls and place on a baking tray. Flatten down slightly.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, or when they are golden brown.
Eat!

I’ve had a go at making these without the spice and fruit, and with chocolate chips. Not quite as healthy but equally as yummy!!

There should have been six fairly big ones but a certain small person was found helping himself before I got a photo!

I literally peeled, chopped and chucked it in the saucepan until all the veggies were soft – about twenty minutes – and then whacked it in the blender until it was smooth. We had it with chopped up wraps to dip in.

I make this soup a lot, especially in the winter. It’s cheap, it’s easy and it’s super healthy. The kids absolutely love it! Its a brilliant way to get loads of veggies in them and it’s really filling and especially nice with crusty bread on a cold day! I make lots of it and then put a tub of it in fridge for the next day and freeze some. It’s perfect for toddler lunches!

Put the butter in a saucepan and lightly brown the onion. Add the potatoes and leeks and vegetable stock and leave to cook until all the veg is soft. Take it off the heat and whack it all in the blender until it is as smooth as you want it – we have outs quite thick and chunky.

We eat quite a lot of homemade soup so watch out for more recipes!

The photo isn’t of my soup, its from the BBC food website – I’m a bit rubbish at making food look pretty!

I make this soup a lot, especially in the winter. It’s cheap, it’s easy and it’s super healthy. The kids absolutely love it! Its a brilliant way to get loads of veggies in them and it’s really filling and especially nice with crusty bread on a cold day! I make lots of it and then put a tub of it in fridge for the next day and freeze some. It’s perfect for toddler lunches!

Put the butter in a saucepan and lightly brown the onion. Add the potatoes and leeks and vegetable stock and leave to cook until all the veg is soft. Take it off the heat and whack it all in the blender until it is as smooth as you want it – we have outs quite thick and chunky.

We eat quite a lot of homemade soup so watch out for more recipes!

The photo isn’t of my soup, its from the BBC food website – I’m a but rubbish at making food look pretty!

Ok, so I know this is supposed to be all about kids, but couldn’t resist sharing this. These boozy truffles are definitely not for kids!
My lovely sister in law, Kim, makes these every year. Let me tell you, they are usually demolished within seconds. She’s so far taunted me with these pictures, and I know that there is a box waiting to be eaten at my parents.
She’s been lovely enough to share her recipe with me (and you!)

Break about two thirds of the chocolate into a bowl and put this over a pan of hot water. Add the alcohol and leave to melt. Take off the heat and stir in the butter, which shouldn’t be too hard. Mix in the sieved icing sugar and group almonds until well blended.

Leave in a cool place until the mixture is firm enough to handle. Divide into about 16 even sized pieces and roll into balls. Grate the remaining chocolate, place on greaseproof paper and roll the truffles in it – you could also roll it in those chocolate hundreds and thousand bits. Put into the little cake cases.

These are gorgeous. A little tub of them would make a fab gift – if you could resist eating them first!!

Catchy name eh?
We wanted to make some cakes today but it’s the day before shopping day and we have no eggs so that blew that out…until I remembered good old crispy cakes!

We always have rice crispies in the cupboard. We don’t really eat them as the kids prefer porridge or weetabix but they’re handy for making cakes. We’ve also always got cooking chocolate in the baking cupboard. I wanted to make them a bit different though. I had a mooch through the cupboard and found half a tub of crunchy peanut butter – aha!!

Now, this recipe may not be suitable for some kids. I know some people don’t like giving their kids peanut butter, or only smooth peanut butter (which would work just as well). We let ours have the crunchy stuff – we don’t have any allergies and they’re always really supervised whilst eating it as I know it can be seen as a choking hazard.

As this was a bit of an experiment I don’t really have any measurements for you. I know we used 600g of cooking chocolate (dark) and about a third of a biggish jar of peanut butter.
We heated the chocolate over a low heat, stirring constantly. When it was nice and smooth we poured it over some rice crispies in a bowl and gave it a good mix. We had to keep adding the cereal until all the cereal was coated but not swimming in the chocolate. We then mixed in the peanut butter and spooned into muffin cases. After a couple of hours in the fridge they were done! They were lovely.